


The mind-numbingly boring act of reading poetry at a bar when you could be drinking

by tahmoh



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-05
Updated: 2016-03-05
Packaged: 2018-05-24 18:40:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6162901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tahmoh/pseuds/tahmoh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean get's a job at the library and meets Castiel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The mind-numbingly boring act of reading poetry at a bar when you could be drinking

**Author's Note:**

> I found this and decided to add a quick ending. Be prepared for unedited writing, weird wording, and uneducated guesses on the number of beers a person can tolerate. 
> 
> *Nsfw-ish and Alcohol TW

“Alright Dean,” The lady paused to looked down at the laminated ID badge she was holding, “Winchester. Today, this is where you will help members find books and information. For the next week, you will be assigned different jobs in this library to see what suits you best.” She stopped in front of a small brown desk curved into a semi-circle shape and looked at it. She was a short lady with mahogany hair and her own ID badge said “Pamela B.” She was maybe in her 50’s but she looked as if she could’ve witnessed World War I with her own eyes. There was an empty black swivel chair sitting in the middle of the desk that looked like had been used by 100 people over multiple decades. When she looked back at Dean to see if he understood his job description, she found him with his eyebrows raised, intensely staring at her and thumbs in his jean pockets, so she put her hands on her hips and stared back at him. It was one of those stares you would get from your mother when you knew she would not tolerate anything else from you and you should do what she asked, although Dean never knew what that stare was. After a very uncomfortable minute of awkward staring, Pamela finally broke the silence, “You understand?” It took a while for Dean to realize he was being asked a question. “Yeah! Yep. I got it. Easiest thing I’m ever gonna do!” He grinned a big, fake grin and cocked his head to the side. Pamela squinted at Dean as if she didn’t believe him, which she probably didn’t, but the library needed more employees and she wasn’t going to turn down the only other willing help. “Okay.” She said, still suspicious, “Library’s opening in a few minutes. Get ready to do the easiest thing you’ll ever experience.” She said the last sentence over her shoulder as she walked towards the entrance, obviously mocking Dean. He bit his bottom lip at the mockery, and let out an exasperated, “Huh.”

Dean walked around to the open end of the table and lazily sat down in the swivel chair. His sudden weight on the old and unstable chair made it creak and lowered the seat beneath the height of the desk a considerable amount. “Son of a bitch!” Dean angrily whispered to no one in particular. He held onto the edges of the platform, which held a few utensils and papers, that stood out a few inches below the top of the desk and pulled the chair, along with himself, closer. Then he repeatedly got up and sat down softly to let the chair know it was okay to rise back up. When it was finally at an appropriate height that allowed Dean to see over the desk, he carefully sat back down. This time, it only sank a little, but not enough for Dean to have to repeat the fiasco of exercise he just executed. He looked at the clock that hung on the far wall. The happy yellow smiley-face looked back at him and told him, “10:56”. It also said “Reading is fun!” in bright letters under his smile, but Dean chose to ignore that statement since he believed that reading was, indeed, not fun. He had exactly 4 minutes before people of all ages would come in and ask him uninteresting questions about uninteresting books. Luckily, there was a small computer fused into the desk where he could type in books people asked him about, and all the information was already there. He didn’t know why they didn’t just put these out where everybody could use them instead of having to ask him. Dean decided to not wonder any further since he needed some money, and this job did seem extremely easy.

“Cas! There you are!” Dean heard Pamela exclaim from the opposite side of the considerably large room. He stretched his neck over his desk to see who this “Cas” was and why she wanted him to be here. Pamela was hugging a taller man with dark hair who was smiling. “Sorry I’m late, had a small car accident this morning.” The guy who Dean assumed to be Cas said that extremely enthusiastically for someone who could’ve possibly died. “I would’ve called but-” Pamela interrupted, waving him off and following him as he walked towards a desk of unorganized books. “No need to explain. Just glad you’re fine, I mean, what would I do without someone to do all my work for me?” They both laughed at that. Cas was now mindlessly sorting the books on the table and he continued a quieter conversation with Pamela in which Dean could not hear so he returned to typing in random dirty words into the computer and seeing what kind of books they had on, “Breasts,” “Large” and “Busty,” among many others. Dean was reading the crazy titles on books with the word “Ass” in them and chuckling to himself when his subconscious kicked in and told him that voices to approaching. Dean took his eyes off the screen for a split second to see that Cas and Pamela were deep into a conversation, but were still heading towards him. He frantically typed, “Cute” into the search bar so they wouldn’t find out what he was looking at, although they couldn’t see over the inside wall of the desk from the outside in the first place.

“Dean?” Pamela said as he was seemingly panicking for no reason. “Dean!” “Wuh-Oh! H-Hi!” He put on an innocent smile and looked at them. Pamela seemed even more suspicious than she was ten minutes ago, but she apparently shrugged it off. “Dean, Castiel. Cas, Dean. Cas also works here, reorganizing the shelves, helping with events, that kind of stuff.” “Hi. Dean Win-chester.” Dean continued to smile and stretched his hand over the desk to shake Cas’ hand, hoping he missed his voice crack. Cas squinted at him as if he didn’t know what a handshake was or maybe he had noticed Dean’s voice crack, but reached out and took Dean’s hand anyways. The customary handshake lasted maybe three seconds, but Dean held onto Cas’ hand for much longer, he didn’t seem to want to let go. Cas tried to get his hand back from Dean’s grasp, and after multiple tugs Dean realized what he was doing and quickly let go, blushing looking away from Cas. Pamela, again, broke the awkward silence. “Uh, Dean also works here! Now. He’s the new desk guy.” She pouted her lips and said it so matter-of-factly that you would think she said that particular sentence everyday. Cas opened his mouth and subtly tilted his head upwards as if to say something to add onto Pamela’s statement, but he just closed his mouth and gave Dean the polite smile you would give to strangers you pass on the streets. Cas put a hand on Pamela’s shoulder and quickly looked behind him, “I’m, gonna continue the, you know.” He pointed to the corner of the room that he had looked at earlier. Pamela smiled and nodded at Cas, and then he left the desk for a table with a pile of paper on it. “Uh, just, do your job.” She nodded at Dean too, though she left out the smile, then she went into the door by the entrance which Dean assumed to be her office since she was the manager. Dean looked at the happy smiling yellow clock again. “11:07”. Nobody had come into the library yet, luckily.

Dean did not want to talk to anyone after his embarrassing first impression on the first guy he felt anything for since he had broken up with his last boyfriend, 2 years ago. Even though he had just met Cas, shivers went down his spine when he first laid his eyes on him. It even made him feel weird looking up breasts on the computer directly afterwards, and when he shook his hand, his heart felt like it had started beating faster and faster, especially since Dean could now see that Cas had eyes bluer than the sky. Dean tried to ignore it, he promised himself he wouldn’t get attached to anything connected to this job since he was going to quit once another better paying job accepted his resume, although that had a very low chance of happening. His resume consisted of a few days of fixing up old cars and a week’s worth of bad tips at a small diner before he was fired for yelling at a customer because they had said their, “pie wasn’t up to standard.” It was worth it, Dean had made that pie himself and nobody insulted his pie.

The rest of his money came from gambling and pool games at the local bar, most of which he spent at the same place he obtained it. He did manage to save up enough to rent a small apartment which he only used for sleeping. He usually spent his nights drinking and playing pool, then he would stumble home at 6am, which was only two blocks from the bar, and instantly fell asleep only to wake up at 5pm with enough time to get over his hangover and head back to the bar just in time to put money in the daily pool wagers. Last night, he only got to have one drink before having to go home because he had to wake up early for his new job, which ruined his perfectly satisfying schedule. “12:42,” The happy smiling yellow clock now said. No one out of the total of 19 people who entered the library asked him for information about a book. Dean had stared at the clock for several minutes, silently challenging it to a blinking contest. The clock won. The previously clean desk was now covered in pen marks from Dean absently drawing uneven circles while staring at the door, something he would like to go through and never return. Cas had left the table in the corner 2 hours earlier and went somewhere Dean couldn’t see from his own desk.

“Excuse me?” The voice seemed louder than it probably was, maybe it was because of how quiet and dark everything had been. Dean jerked his head up, snapping awake from almost falling asleep, his left arm that had been supporting his slumbering head almost slipped from the desk in result in his sudden movement. The bright overhead LED lights entered his vision once again, temporarily blinding him. Trying to redeem his non-existent professionalism, Dean sat up straight, causing the chair to sink again. Dean ignored it and smiled at the lady that stood behind the desk who he could now see. She had long dark hair and was quite attractive. “Yes! How can I help?” He tried to sound enthusiastic. “You’re not the usual guy.” She sounded confused. “Thats right. I’m the new guy.” Dean continued to smile. Maybe that would make her trust him like she trusted the “usual guy” “Okay. Well.” She reached into her purse, pulled out a library card and offered it to him. He didn’t know what she wanted him to do with it, so he took it from her and read what was on it. “Name: Lisa Braeden.” and beside that was a picture of the women in front of him, Lisa. It also had her account number on it, but that didn’t really interest Dean. “Um, how can I help you, Lisa?” He paused before saying Lisa and checked the card again, as if he had somehow read the name wrong a couple seconds ago. “The usual guy would check my checklist and tell me which books I’m reading next.” “I don’t really know how to do that. Maybe you could ask the manager” Dean looked up at her and gave back her card.

As she was taking it back and judgingly looking at him, Cas appeared to the left side of the room, just turning a corner. “Lisa! How are you doing today? Need to check your list?” Cas asked as he walked towards us. Lisa smiled at him and gave him her recently reobtained library card. “Thank you! I thought they had replaced you with him.” At the last word, she shot a disapproving look at Dean. He scoffed and looked at Lisa while dramatically pushing himself and his chair away from the desk as Cas walked into the semi-circle and approached the computer. Dean had not pushed far enough, he could feel Cas’ body heat as he typed in the computer, but he didn’t want to enforce Lisa’s thoughts that he was bad at his job by saying he made a mistake. An irrelevant mistake at that, but still a mistake, so he sat in his chair and stared at a red stain on Cas’ white button-up shirt that could’ve been from either blood or ketchup. Dean decided to believe it came from the latter, he didn’t want his new crush to be cute and a murderer. His gaze passed over Cas’ stubble as he tried to distract his eyes from looking at Cas’ bottom, which was just past Dean’s head. He also noticed Cas’ dark messy hair that was cleanly cut just above his neck and around his ears and looked like he had just gotten out of bed and didn’t bother to do anything to it. After a few minutes, Cas quite aggressively clicked the left button on the mousepad a few times and a piece of paper whirred out of the printer on the left side of the desk, which he then picked up and walked around the desk to give to Lisa along with her card.

She showed some perfect teeth in a smile and took both items. Dean looked at Cas’ profile, the corners of his mouth went up as he smiled back. Everyone seemed to be extremely happy here, everyone except Dean. Cas left again, back around the corner he appeared from. Dean’s stare lingered at the spot where Cas disappeared from. Dean got off work at 4pm. He went straight to the bar, which to Dean’s surprise was only 3 blocks from the library, to make up for all the drinks he had missed last night. At 8pm, he had had 5 drinks and won a couple hundred from a group of angry college kids. He sat alone at the bar, staring at the drinks on the rack on the wall in front of him and drinking his own liquor, just like every other night before this one. His reputation wasn’t a good one around here, people thought of him as an alcoholic who was violent and stupid. Dean didn’t consider himself very violent, he only got physical if someone insulted someone he loved or attacked him first and while he may not be super intelligent, he certainly wasn’t stupid. The door opened, ringing the bell that hung in front of it. Dean glanced at whoever entered the bar as he does everyone, but this time he knew who it was. He was wearing the same same white from earlier that day.

Cas didn’t notice Dean sitting at the bar, but instead walked towards a group of 5 people, 3 men and 2 women, who greeted Cas with happy smiles. Cas sat down in an empty chair and reached for something from them middle of the table. Dean couldn't see what it was, someone was blocking his view of the table and most of Cas. Dean continued to watch Cas as he opened something and read from it, maybe a book. After a few minutes of observing, one of the men from the table who sat facing dean pointed at him and said something to Cas, who turned and got up when he saw Dean. “Shit.” Dean sighed to himself. He turned back to face the bar and chugged what remain of his drink, pulled out a crumpled bill and shoved it onto the bar. He got up and took his leather jacket off the stool so he could leave, but before he managed to get anywhere, Cas was already facing him. “Dean!” Cas slid onto the stool next to the one Dean was just getting off of. In a very unsuccessful attempt to make it seem like he was already going to leave regardless of whether Cas saw him or not, Dean slowly put on his worn and tattered leather jacket and scratched an invisible itch on his head. Cas either didn’t notice or pretended not to. “Heyy, Cas. Wha-what’re you doing here?” Dean tried his best not to look at him, mostly to hide his blushing cheeks. “Every week some of my friends and I meet up to talk about books we’ve read or recent world events, that kind of stuff.”

“Oh, thats cool. Well, I’m-I’m gonna go-” Dean repeatedly pointed to the door as if Cas didn’t know where it was and needed to be reminded. “Hey, you maybe want to join us? We’re talking about Edgar Allan Poe today.” Cas didn’t expect Dean to say anything, overlapping what they both said. Dean opened his mouth to say yes-he did know a bit about Edgar from his ex-girlfriend Cassie, who was extremely into poetry-but Cas had already realized what Dean had said and was ready to say goodnight. “Oh, well if you have to go-I guess I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“You know-I don’t-I could stay a while longer, I do love some Edgar Allan Poe.” Dean lied, no bone in his body cared for poetry, but Cas seemed to be really excited about him and he wanted Cas to think he knew something about something. “Okay! Come on.” Cas smiled at Dean. It made something inside him go off, like a switch in his heart letting go of the imprisoned butterfly that now flew around freely in his stomach. Dean breathed in a huge breath, then slowly let it out before following Cas. A few steps behind Cas, he saw Cas gesture towards Dean and probably introducing him to his friends. The people who had their backs to Dean twisted in their chairs to look at him, waving and smiling. Dean smiled back, not at anyone in particular, just at the group as a whole. Cas pulled another chair from the table to the left of them and put it beside his chair.

Dean cleared his throat for no reason other than to temporarily distract himself from the inevitable-talking to other people. Dean, being just a bit taller than Cas, couldn’t fit his whole bottom-half under the table which led to awkwardly having the table pressed against his legs. He didn’t know why the bar insisted on having such small tables, considering most of the regular customers were larger men, which is why Dean never sat at them until now. Not knowing what to do his his hands, since they did not have the usual drink to tap his fingers against, Dean clasped his palms together and put his arms on the table, causing him to have to lean forward a bit. In the middle of the table was an old book that looked like someone relentlessly bent the paperback cover and the pages as if they were extremely mad at the book. The cover of the small book read, “Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane and Minor Poems” with a painting of what looked like a countryside road with a couple of trees on the left. The woman who sat opposite of Dean picked up the book and flipped it open to a page that had been marked with a piece of paper sticking out. “Alright then, I guess I’ll continue to read.” She cleared her throat and straightened out her back. She then did what she said she was going to do, continue reading. After she finished a page, the other 4 people and Cas started talking about what the poem meant, and Dean, who had no idea what to say, just nodded and let out the occasional, “Mhm..” to give the impression that he did indeed understand.

After a few minutes, nobody was paying attention to Dean, they were all too immersed in the conversation about the discovery of supernova’s, Dean had no idea why that mattered in the discussion of poetry. Realizing they didn’t seem to care that he had nothing to say, Dean waved to a waitress who was walking around and asked her to bring him a beer, and when she did, Dean politely smiled and thanked her. He sat and drank from his beer, fixated on a flickering light at the far wall of the bar, but occasionally stole a look at the side of Cas’ face and marveling at his jawline, which he had noticed had a small scar on it. Dean wondered how he had gotten that scar, extremely bad shaving accident? Feeling extremely out of place at the table, Dean interrupted after half an hour and said that he had to go home. Everyone smiled and said their goodbyes. As Dean got up, Cas did the same, “I have to go too, I’ll leave with you.” And so Dean and Cas walked out of the bar together, not saying a word to each other for a whole block. “Do you live this way?” Dean asked, he had never seen Cas in our around his building. “Oh, uh yea. I live that way.” Cas pointed slightly to the left. “Hey, how many drinks have you had?” Cas suddenly said. “7...I think?” Dean had gone easy tonight, most of the time he would drink 12 or more and still be stable enough to walk home in a few minutes and remember the whole night. “Wow, I usually have 2 or 3 and I’m done, I don’t drink a lot.” They didn’t have anything else to say the rest of the walk. Soon enough, they reached Deans building.

“Cas?” Dean said, just as Cas was turning around to walk home himself. “Would you-would you maybe want to go up to my, uh. My apartment. We could talk a bit more, you know, get to know each other since we’ll be working together. I have a few beers we could drink.” Dean didn’t know what he was doing, he never stuttered even when drunk. “Oh! Sure, I guess it would be nice to know you more.” Cas smiled and followed Dean through the doors and up the stairs to the 3rd floor where they entered an apartment. As soon as Dean closed the door, he went into the kitchen and opened the fridge to grab two beers. The bottles clinked as he walked back into the considerably empty living room, it only had one two-person couch, a coffee table and a small tv. Cas was sitting on the couch, looking through some of the magazines that sat on the table. When Cas saw Dean, he put down the magazines and accepted the beer.

Dean sat next to Cas, and they talked. After two beers, Cas is already extremely tipsy. “Tell me Dean, why are you working at the library?” Cas slurred his words. “Well, I need some money so I don’t starve and have somewhere to sleep. I also really like books and-” Dean’s lie was cut off with Cas’ mouth pressed against his. He felt two hands press against the sides of the face, fingers raking through his hair, pulling him closer to the other side of the couch. Dean was surprised, but did nothing to stop it from happening. In fact, he closed his eyes kissed back. He put his beer on the coffee table and in the heat of the moment, forced his now free hands between their bodies to push Cas down on the couch and got on top of him, never once separating their mouths. Dean lowered himself so his chest was grazing against Cas’ shirt and for a split second, lifted his lips to take a breath. Apparently Cas thought that the current position they were in was wrong, since he took his hands off Dean’s face and pushed him off into a sitting position only to grab his shoulders and lean forward himself, forcing Dean to lay on his back, silently saying that he was top and was not in the mood to argue.

Dean took a breath and tensed as Cas now got on top of him. For a moment, they just stared at each other as Cas pressed his forehead against Dean’s, faces so close to each other they could feel each others warm breaths. He lowered his head and pushed his tongue in between Dean’s lips, moaning into his mouth. Cas traced his fingers across Dean’s cheek and slowly went down his neck and collarbones. Dean grabbed at Cas’ hair, pulling them closer together. Cas started to pull at the bottom of Dean’s shirt in an attempt to get it off. Dean closed his eyes and shivered when Cas’ warm fingers made contact with his cold stomach. Frustrated that Cas seemed to lack the skill to take off a shirt, Dean got up just high enough off the couch to pull his plain black shirt off himself. Cas suddenly sat back up and stared at Dean for a moment. “I’m-I’m sorry, um, I-I have to go.” Cas rubbed his forehead and got up. He stood there, awkwardly looking between the floor and Dean before he buttoned up the top of his shirt that Dean had apparently undone. “I’ll see you tom-tomorrow.” Cas hurriedly walked out of the apartment, almost slamming the door as he left, pushing air that wafted across Dean’s bare chest. “Yeah…” Dean muttered even though Cas had already left and couldn’t hear him.

The next day, Pamela put Dean on Sorting duty. That wasn’t actually what it was called, all he had to do was take the books people returned and put them back on the shelves they belonged on, but he didn’t know what else to tell himself he was doing. As she was explaining the job, Dean was impatiently and constantly looking at the entrance, half hoping Cas would walk through the doors and half hoping he never showed up. All he could think about from the second Cas walked out of his apartment was what he would say the next time they saw each other, if ever, and Cas saying that he would see him tomorrow gave him no reassurance. He prayed that it wasn’t the end of their short friendship. Maybe Cas didn’t remember it, he did get drunk after 2 beers, but a part of Dean wanted Cas to remember everything. “What is wrong with you?” Pamela’s voice suddenly wasn’t a background noise. “Wu-nothing!” Dean stammered, still looking at the front doors. “Alright...just don’t get all flustered if people ask you for help.” And with that, she walked into her office. It was 20 minutes since Cas’ shift was supposed to start for the day and he still wasn’t here. He could’ve asked Pamela if she knew where Cas was, but he felt as if that was unnecessarily suspicious.

Dean pushed the cart with the books that needed sorting into the hallway that led to the bookshelves. After 20 minutes of trying to sort books, Dean realized he probably should’ve listened to Pamela explain what to do. It seemed extremely easy but somehow, he managed to mess it up. Dean knelt to grab a book from a shelf on the cart but managed to pull on the plank of wood they stood on, and yanked it from its slot on the cart causing all the books to fly. One hit Dean in the knee and he jumped up, clutching his knee. “Son of a bitch!” He said it rather loud, hoping Pamela wasn’t around. Pamela was not around to hear him yell obscenities, but someone else was. “Need some help?” Cas came up from behind the bookshelf. Dean looked up as Cas walked to him and started picking up the books. “Yeah..” Dean whispered, more to himself than to Cas. He stood against the bookshelf as Cas picked up the remaining books. Seeing the one he was going to put on the shelf, Dean picked it up and turned to put it where it belong. “Hey Cas, I’m sorry about last night if I was-” Dean started as he was turning back around, but he did so to see Cas standing a few inches from his face.

Cas took a step closer and Dean instinctively took a step back, only to hit the bookshelf. Cas stared into Dean’s eyes as he put two hands on Dean’s face and kissed him. Dean took a breath before kissing him back, relieved that it seemed Cas didn’t have any resentment about last night. He pushed against Cas, forcing him back into the middle of the space between two bookshelves and kept pushing until they were in front of the cart. Dean picked up Cas from his torso while still kissing him, he was surprisingly light, and put him on the top of the cart, thankfully Dean had done his job, even if it wasn’t correctly. He lightly grabbed Cas’ leg and pushed it so Dean could stand between them and be closer to his face. Dean ran his hands through Cas’ hair, as Cas stopped kissing his lips and went down to his neck. He could feel Cas’ warm breath as he moaned into his neck. “Stop it you two! There are other people here!” Pamela’s loud voice resonated against the large bookshelves. Dean quickly took a step back, breaking their contact. “Uh, yea sorry ab-about that.” Dean said, running his hands through the hair and looking down at the ground. Pamela, with her hands on her hips, just shook her head and walked away. “Don’t worry about her.” Cas chuckled, “Want to go to the bar after?”

“Sure, as long as I don’t have to read poetry.”


End file.
